Benton
Town in Polk County, 1,560 people.
Police
Sheriff in its county: Polk County Sheriff's Office.
A department is the place's own when its name is the place's and its FBI population fits the place's people (decision city-or-town-is-its-police-department). Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29.
Where it sits
- County
- Polk County
- People
- 1,560
- Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2020 to 2024
How a case moves here
Benton follows Tennessee law on arrests, release, and courts; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.
- Who decides release first
A magistrate sets bail first. In many counties that is an appointed judicial commissioner who need not be a lawyer; in others it is a general sessions judge or, when no judge can come within three hours, a court clerk. A defendant can appeal a commissioner's decision to the court.
Tenn. Code Ann. 40-11-106Tenn. Code Ann. 40-1-111Tenn. Code Ann. 40-11-150- Time to see a judge
A person arrested must be taken "without unnecessary delay" before the nearest magistrate of the county. The rule sets no number of hours.
Tenn. R. Crim. P. 5(a)- Money bail
Magistrates and judges may set money bail, and the sheriff or a judicial commissioner accepts bonds from approved commercial bonding companies.
Tenn. Code Ann. 40-11-106
Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Some of this is medium confidence and still being checked. trial_selection is "mixed" because Ballotpedia says trial judges run in partisan elections unless a county opts for nonpartisan ones; no statute was read for this. Which counties use judicial commissioners versus judges or clerks, and whether any county uses a misdemeanor bail schedule, was not confirmed.
Crime
Offenses reported by Benton Police Department, Benton's own department. The county sheriff and state police may answer calls here too; their offenses are on their own pages.
The crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | Tennessee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crime | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 610 | |
| Murder | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 8.8 | |||||
| Rape | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 41 | ||||
| Robbery | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 63 | ||||
| Aggravated assault | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 498 | |
| Property crime | 27 | 34 | 17 | 7 | 6 | 1,298 | 2,131 |
| Burglary | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 284 |
| Larceny | 19 | 30 | 13 | 6 | 4 | 1,027 | 1,510 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 4 | 2 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 337 | ||
| Arson | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 12 |
Outside the crime index
| Offense | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per 100k | Tennessee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All offenses outside the crime index | 201 | 205 | 136 | 60 | 54 | 9,359 | 4,023 |
| Simple assault and intimidation | 14 | 18 | 15 | 10 | 20 | 1,099 | 1,439 |
| Vandalism | 2 | 11 | 3 | 2 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 603 | |
| Fraud | 7 | 8 | 1 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 390 | |
| Drug abuse violations | 170 | 168 | 102 | 44 | 30 | 7,333 | 1,125 |
| Weapons: carrying, possessing, etc. | 6 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 285 | 218 |
| Stolen property: buying, receiving, possessing | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 32 | ||||
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 1 | 1 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 69 | ||
| Other Group A offenses | 2 | 3 | 1 | Too few for a rate: the count is under 20. | 71 |
Offenses Benton Police Department reported to the FBI in incident detail (NIBRS), each year, the second table by the arrest class each offense falls in. Per 100k: offenses per 100,000 people the department polices, 2021 to 2025 added together, beside Tennessee's rate over the same years. – means too few for a rate: the count is under 20.
Source: FBI NIBRS national master files, each agency's offenses and the FBI's population for it. Tennessee: the crime index: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, CrimeDB's chosen value per year (the state page's figures); outside it: FBI NIBRS, agencies that sent incident detail.